Have mercy on me, Mother Earth, according to your steadfast love and abundant benevolence. Wash each of us thoroughly while the dreamers awaken from their slumber. I know I have transgressed. I see before me the ways I have gone astray from your beauty and goodness. Create in me a clean heart, Mother [...]
The other day I stood in the crisp air of early morning, in the freshness of the dawning light, and knew without question the ecstatic and complex glory of my very simple life, at least for a few minutes. The day was bursting forward without temerity or hesitancy. The sky surrounding me held an eternity [...]
Another new year. So how are you feeling? Yay or nay? Another new year and I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Although, as Dolly Parton says so eloquently in the movie “Steel Magnolias” after Shelby’s funeral, “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” I think that sums up my strategy this past year. [...]
Every year when decorating the tree on Christmas Eve at my mother’s there comes a point when we become still and fall silent. We oftentimes wait until Christmas Eve to decorate the tree in order to have everyone there. It makes for a much more precious and meaningful experience as each ornament is taken out [...]
How many times have you found yourself interacting with a person you find challenging, and thinking how hard that person is to love? Have you ever wondered if you’ve been hard to love? I know I have been. Sometimes I’m just prickly, aware that I am angry, tired, lonely or confused. Some days I [...]
There will be a time when one will have come such a long way over the high way of God, that the valleys would cease to appear… just the hilltops would appear to us. After we have passed through these valleys which may seem less desirable than the hills, we may look back over the [...]
Recently a friend and I were talking about what life was like when we first got into 12-step recovery, and what we needed in order to break the bonds of addiction. I rarely talk about the beginning because frankly most of it is a blur, and it was a few decades ago! All I wanted [...]
This July 4th feels very different to me. For several reasons, not the least of which is Trump’s spectacle for today. For me and my memories, it is too reminiscent of the imagery of Tiananmen Square, or Communist China military parades. Echoes of an animal that puffs itself up, sporting for a fight. I think [...]
Peace is one of those seemingly intangible, shape-shifting things in life, such as love, that molds our lives so intensely. It’s not necessarily something I can hold in my hand or perhaps physically give to you, and there are no words to adequately define the experience or even give a “correct” definition. Yet it is the [...]
It's the second week of Advent, the week we focus on PEACE, and I am wondering how much peace everyone is feeling or practicing in light of events, both here at home and abroad. Sometimes peace can seem a little out of reach or maybe for a few folks, even difficult to define. I [...]
